Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in high school graduation rates. From 2022 to 2023, the four-year high school graduation rate for Massachusetts English Learners declined 5.8 percentage points (from 73.1% to 67.3%), according to a Citizens for Public Schools analysis. This was the largest decline ever recorded for English learners with the current method of calculating graduation rates.
This decline coincided with the reinstatement of the MCAS graduation requirement in 2023 after a three-year suspension because of the COVID pandemic. During the suspension period, graduation rates for English learners rose 8.5%, suggesting that high stakes testing requirements may disproportionately impact multilingual students.
English Learners continue to lag behind their peers in high school graduation rate, college readiness (Mass Core completion), and college attendance. The achievement gap persists between ELs and their peers in performance indicators including MCAS, SAT, and NAEP tests.
Between 2015 and 2022, English learners and students with disabilities had the lowest four-year graduation rates, between 63-73% each year, consistently trailing behind their peers and highlighting the need for more effective support systems.